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Introduction A Brief History of Print The End of Books Hypertext What Is The Book? The Novel Is Dead This Is Not Science Fiction Monkeys & Typewriters In Defense of The E-Book Conclusion References |
The end of books?
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| What
Is The Book? |
Since the age of Gutenberg’s press, the terms “print” and “book” appeared inextricably intertwined. For writers and critics such as William Gass, “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country”, and Sven Bikerts, The Gutenberg Elegies, the relationship between form and content had become embodied, as it were, in the physical act of reading. To separate the two, therefore, was to forsake the sensory experience associated with the act of reading print and, therefore, to reduce the pleasure of reading. In his award winning essay, “In Defense of the Book”, William Gass argues that the materiality of a book provides the “stimulus for reminiscence” without which understanding and recall of the text itself is lost: We shall not understand what a book is, and why a book has the value many persons have, and is even less replaceable than a person, if we forget how important to it is its body, the building that has been built to hold its lines of language safely together through many adventures and a long time. Responding to Gass’ apologia, Melvin Sterne, a supporter of hypertext and staunch defender of the book, agrees that the book is endangered but reminds his readers that the book existed in many forms, long before print, and that literature transcends history and cultures regardless of its container: “There are no existing copies of any of the original gospel accounts, yet the Bible survives. More accurately, then, we must conclude that a book is the information contained in the body, not the body itself.” That the book is much more than an object is certain, but the debate does not end here. If a book is defined by its content, what happens when the nature of the content is radically changed? |
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| Tara Stephens School of Library and Information Sciences |